Many anecdotes support both strategies, but we should be asking, “where’s the data?”

A Tale of Two Different Approaches

Zappos – a company that built its brand on customer service – drew a line in the sand by featuring its phone number on the top of their website, all the time.

Here’s what Zappos founder and CEO has to say about their stance on their phone number:

Tony Hseih:

“On many websites the contact information is buried at least five links deep, because the company doesn’t really want to hear from you. And when you find it, it’s a form or an e-mail address.

We take the exact opposite approach.

We put our phone number (it’s 800-927-7671, in case you’d like to call) at the top of every single page of our website, because we actually want to talk to our customers. And we staff our call center 24/7.”

Rackspace is another example of a company that built its brand on customer service, or “fanatical support.”

This method will use a forwarding number and a little bit of excel work to do the test.

Step 1 -Set Up a Tracking Number

The first step is setting up a tracking number. Fortunately this is very easy with most VOIP systems.

Please note: you should use a tracking number specific to this experiment – not just your existing phone number. The reason being that phone numbers get scraped by Google and other directories. Phone calls made to your main number may not have originated on your landing page.

Make sure your phone records can be exported to a CSV. Talkdesk and most other VOIP providers allow for this.

For purposes of this tutorial, we’ll use Twilio. This video walks you through the steps of setting up a forwarding number.

Step 2 – Run Your Test

This part is pretty straightforward. Simply take your tracking number, and put it in the desired spot in your preferred A/B testing tool.

Version A – Leave phone blank (or remove it)

Version B – Insert your tracking number

Once you have this setup, go ahead and integrate the test with Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Segment, or however you’re used to tracking conversions.

And if you have 1s preceding your number, you’ll need to take it a step further using a statement like this:

=if(left(J2,1)*1=1,right(J2,10),J2)*1

(Note: I like to always multiply string operations on numbers by 1 to keep the data formatted as a number rather than a string.)

4 – Download your call data, put into a google doc

Fortunately, Twilio keeps call data clean, so you shouldn’t have to do too much formatting.

Simply import the incoming calls associated with your tracking number, and paste them into a third tab in your spreadsheet.

5 – Use a vlookup to get your call conversions

Now we’re going to use the trusty ole VLOOKUP function to get call conversions.

For those unfamiliar, here’s what Microsoft has to say about a VLOOKUP:

Use VLOOKUP, one of the lookup and reference functions, when you need to find things in a table or a range by row. For example, look up a price of an automotive part by the part number.

=VLOOKUP(Value you want to look up, range where you want to lookup the value, the column number in the range containing the return value, Exact Match or Approximate Match – indicated as 0/FALSE or 1/TRUE).

We’re going to use VLOOKUP to check whether the incoming caller number is also found in our customers list.

See all those cells with phone numbers in column C? Those are customers. The error cells, indicate incoming calls that did not result in conversions.

Let’s make it a little cleaner using an an IF() and ISERROR() statement.

Much cleaner.

Now let’s go ahead and get a few data points out of here. We want:

Total Number of Calls: Number of incoming calls we received

Total Number of Callers: Number of distinct/unique incoming numbers that called us

Caller Conversion Rate: Converted Customers / Total Number of Callers

You can see the formulas here:

We’ll go ahead and cut and paste these formulas into the ‘Summary’ tab.

Step 4 – Combine and Check Your Results

Now, modify your original summary tab as follows to combine the results and compare conversion rates:

In this fictitious example, we saw a significantly lower online conversion (having the phone number), but a higher overall conversion.

But the test isn’t yet finished.

Step 5 – Account for Revenue

Phone sales aren’t free – you need to pay a human to make the sale, and you can’t exclude this in your analysis.

In order to get a general sense of how much of a true win this test was, we’re going to incorporate a few more data points:

Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV) – for our purposes, this is net of all marketing & support costs

Number of sales reps required

Monthly cost per rep – their salary

Test period – for simplicity, we’ll assume it’s one month

The calculations we did are as follows:

Unadjusted total LTV = LTV per customer * total conversions

Sale cost = sales reps * monthly cost per rep * test period

Adjusted total LTV = unadjusted total LTV – sale cost

As you can see in the spreadsheet, we got a 9% increase in conversion, while we only got 2% increase in total LTV.

Next Steps – It’s Not Just a Conversion Rate Problem

If we were making a simple tweak to the UI, it wouldn’t be a complicated decision to execute. However, phone support requires people, time, resources, and costs. Here are some next steps to help you hone in on a data-driven decision.

Sensitivity Analysis

But that isn’t the point. The point of testing phone vs no phone is to get a general sense of whether having a phone can be a large enough opportunity to account for the overhead involved.

Sensitivity analyses can help evaluate the real opportunity.

Investopedia defines sensitivity analysis as “A sensitivity analysis is a technique used to determine how different values of an independent variable will impact a particular dependent variable under a given set of assumptions.”

Here are some of the “what if” scenarios you’ll want to evaluate:

Increase in phone conversion: Your phone conversion probably wasn’t optimal for the first go around – what does total LTV look like if you can increase it?

Decrease in rep cost: What does it look like if you decide to have your sales reps overseas at a fraction of the cost?

Hiding the phone number: Suppose you hide the phone number at the bottom of the page, hoping to maintain your online conversion, but allow those super-luddites to still all in.

Device Testing

A popular solution is click to call, and you might want to test that. This would involve using a bit of javascript to include a different tracking number on mobile than desktop.

The result could be that you only include a phone number on mobile, but none on desktop.

True cost of human sales

You’re probably thinking, “Ryan, you made some pretty simple assumptions there with that analysis.”

And you’re right. Hiring a sales rep costs time and money.

There’s turnover. You have to train them. While a rep may be able to handle 30 calls per day on average, it’s very likely you’ll have to increase the number of reps to handle peak time. As the team scales you have to do call reviews, and eventually hire management. Scaling a sales team and maintaining, not to mention improving your conversion rate is no easy task.

You’ll have to account for this in your financial plan, but that’s another post.

Accounting for increased support costs

If you currently don’t offer phone support, and suddenly put a phone number on your site, you’re going to get phone calls. You have two options:

Start offering phone support – this changes your business model and associated costs

Tell these customers you can’t help them – this creates a bad experience

If you currently have phone support and remove the number, you’ll want to make sure your customers can still get their problems solved.

Testing infrastructure

The method I presented is quick, dirty, and requires no overhead.

But should you decide that having a phone number is right for your business, it will inevitably be part of every A/B test you do going forward. You’ll want to make sure you create the systems to track on an ongoing basis.

Personally, I hate being slave to the limitations of out-of-the-box analytics tools. So at LawnStarter, we simply set up a MySQL table that contains all of our tracking numbers. We put all of our internal data as well as data from 3rd party tools into one Redshift database, then join it up and visualize in Tableau.

Your core brand identity

Finally, you have to think about the type of brand you want to build. Do you want to be Zappos, Amazon, or something in-between? The phone number goes a long way to making this determination.

Conclusion

A phone number on a website can be a game changing opportunity, a huge cost center, or simply inconsequential. And with most things in digital marketing, you can’t rely on other companies’ case studies or “best practices”; you have to test it yourself.

Have you used data to make the phone – no phone decision for your business? Share your experience in the comments below!

My STARTUP :

Let me introduce myself. My name is Richard Nata.I am an author, novelist, blogger and ghost writer. My articles, including short stories have been published in magazines and newspapers since 1994. I have written a lot of books, both fiction and non-fiction. So I was a professional in the field of writing, both fiction and non-fiction.

I was born in Jakarta, August 17, 1968.

In 1988, at the age of 20 years, I started working as an accounting staff. Age 24 years has occupied the position of Finance Manager. Age 26 years as a General Manager.

In 1994, my articles published in magazines and tabloids.

In 1997, I wrote a book entitled "Buku Pintar Mencari Kerja". This book is reprinted as much as 8 times. Through the book, the authors successfully helped tens of thousands of people get jobs at once successful in their careers. They were also successful when moving to work in other places.

In 1998, I started investing in shares on Bursa Efek Indonesia (Indonesia stock exchange). As a result of investing in the stock market then I can provide consulting services for companies that want to go public in Indonesia stock exchange.

In theory, in 10-20 years into the future, my startup income, amounting to hundreds of million USD annually can be obtained easily. AND IF FOLLOWED BY MANY COMPANIES IN THE WHOLE WORLD WILL THEN BE A NEW INDUSTRIAL worth trillions USD.

To be honest. Currently I'm not having a lot of money. So I start marketing my startup with blogspot.

My STARTUP :

A story with millions of choices in it - looking investor like you.

Try to imagine this. When you're reading a story on the web or blog, you are given two choices. You can choose the next story based on your own choice. After selecting then you can continue reading the story. Shortly afterwards you will be presented back to the 2 other options. The next choice is up to you. Then you continue the story you are reading. After that you will be faced again with 2 choices. So onwards. The more stories you read so the more options you have taken.

If you feel curious then you can re-read the story by changing your selection. Then you will see a different story with the story that you have read previously. The question now is why is this so? Because the storyline will be varying according to your choice.

I, as the author is planning to make tens of thousands of articles with millions of choices in it. With tens of thousands of articles then you like to see a show of your favorite series on TV for several years. The difference is while watching your favorite TV series, then you can not change the story. Meanwhile, if you read this story then you can alter the way the story according to your own choice.

You might say like this. Sounds like a book "choose your own adventure". Books I read when I was young.

Correctly. The idea is taken from there. But if you read through a book, the story is not so exciting. Due to the limited number of pages. When a child first you may already feel interesting. But if you re-read the book now then becomes no fun anymore because you don't get anything with the amount of 100-200 pages.

Have you ever heard of game books? When you were boy or girl, did you like reading game books? I think you've heard even happy to read it.

A gamebook is a work of fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making effective choices. The narrative branches along various paths through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages.

Lihat preview menurut Yahoo

Bantam Books with the Choose Your Own Adventure series has produced more than 250 million US dollars. While I offer you more powerful than the Choose Your Own Adventure. Because of what? Because the story that I made much more interesting than the stories created by the authors of Bantam Books. You will not get anything just to 100-200 pages. While the story that I created is made up of tens of thousands of articles with millions of choices in it.

Based on the above, then you are faced with two choices. Are you interested in reading my story is? Or you are not interested at all. The choice is in your hands.

If you are interested then spread widely disseminated this article to your family, friends, neighbors, and relatives. You can also distribute it on facebook, twitter, goggle +, or other social media that this article be viral in the world. By doing so it is a new entertainment industry has been created.

WHY DO I NEED STARTUP FUNDS FROM INVESTORS? I NEED A LOT OF FUNDS FROM INVESTORS BECAUSE I HAVE TO LOOKING FOR EXPERT PROGRAMMERS(IT).BECAUSE THE DATA IS HANDLED IS VERY LARGE, IT MAY HAVE TO WEAR SOME PROGRAMMERS(IT).I CAN NOT WEAR SOME FREELANCE PROGRAMMER BECAUSE THE DATA MUST BE MONITORED CONTINUOUSLY FROM VIRUSES, MALWARE, SPAM, AND OTHERS.IN ADDITION FUNDS FROM INVESTORS IS ALSO USED TO BUY SERVERS WITH VERY LARGE CAPACITY. FUNDS ARE ALSO USED TO PAY EMPLOYEE SALARIES AND OPERATIONAL COSTS OF THE COMPANY.

FUNDS CAN ALSO BE USED FOR ADVERTISING AND OTHER MARKETING STRATEGIES.FUNDS CAN ALSO BE USED TO ADVERTISE MY STARTUP AND OTHER MARKETING STRATEGIES.

IF I GET A VERY LARGE FUND, THE PART OF THE FUNDS USED TO TRANSLATE THE STORY INTO VARIOUS LANGUAGES.With more and more languages, the more readers we get.

WITH MORE AND MORE READERS, THE MORE REVENUE WE GET.

AS AN INVESTOR THEN YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FEEL ANXIOUS ABOUT YOUR FUNDS. BECAUSE YOUR FUNDS WILL NEVER BE LOST BECAUSE IN 3-5 YEARS YOU HAVE RETURNED THE FUNDS COUPLED WITH PROFIT.

THIS BUSINESS IS ONE AND THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD.

If we can make a good story, so that the readers will come again and again for further reading the story then our earnings will continue to grow and will never diminish. This is due to new readers who continued to arrive, while long remained loyal readers become our customers.

So that the number of our readers will continue to multiply over time. With the increasing number of loyal readership then automatically the amount of income we will also grow larger every year. The same thing happened in yahoo, google, facebook, twitter, linkedin, and others when they still startup.

Deuteronomy {28:13} And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do [them: ]

Try to imagine this. If I give a very unique story. It was the first time in the world. But the world already know this story even liked it. Because the world love the game books. While the story that I made is the development of game books.

Do you Believe ifI dare say if I will succeed because my story will be famous all over the world as Harry Potter?

I believe it. Not because I was the author of the story, but because of the story that I made is unique and the only one in the world.

Income from my startup :

1. Ads. With millions of unique visitors, the price of the ads will be expensive.

2. Affiliate marketing. In addition to advertising, we are also able to put up some banner from affiliate marketing.

3. Contribution of the readers. If you have a million readers and every reader to pay oneUS dollarper year then you will get the income of one million US dollars per year.

If you have a million readers and every reader to pay one US dollar per month then you will get as much revenue twelve million US dollars per year.

4. Books and Comics. After getting hundreds of thousands to the millions of readers of the story will be made in books and the form of a picture story (comics).

5. Movies. If we have a good story with millions of readers then quickly we will be offered to make a film based on the story.

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7. Sales. With millions of email that we have collected from our readers so we can sell anything to them.

Each income (1-7) worth millions to tens of millions of US dollars.

Because each income (1-7) worth millions to tens of millions of US dollars. Then in 10-20 years into the future, AI will be earning hundreds of million USD annually.

So how long do you think my story that I made could gather a thousand readers? Ten thousand readers? One hundred thousand readers? A million readers? Five million readers? Ten million readers? More than ten million readers?

But to get all of it of course takes time, can not be instant. In addition, it takes hard work, big funds and placement of the right people in the right positions.

By advertising, viral marketing, strong marketing strategies and SEO then a million readers can be done in less than a year. Ten million readers can be done in two to three years.

This is the marketing strategy of my startup.

When hundreds of thousands or millions of readers already liked my story then they have to pay to enjoy the story that I made.

If you are a visionary then you will think like this.

With the help of my great name in the world of business, my expertise in marketing, advertising, marketing by mouth, viral marketing, then collecting a million readers to ten million readers will be easy to obtain. Is not that right?

The question now is what if people like my story as they like Harry Potter? You will get tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of email addresses from readers. With that much email, we can sell anything to the readers.

Since April 2013, Wikipedia has around 26 million articles in 285 languages are written by 39 million registered users and a variety of anonymous people who are not known from other parts of the world. Web ranked by Alexa, Wikipedia is a famous website number 6 which has been visited by 12% of all Internet users with 80 million visitors every month and it is only from the calculation of America.

So do not delay. Invest your money immediately to my startup. Take A Look. There are so many advantages if you want to invest in my startup.

WHY YOU SHOULD INVEST YOUR MONEY RIGHT NOW? .

IF YOU INVEST YOUR FUNDS IN ONE, TWO OR THREE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE, YOU MAY BE TOO LATE.BECAUSE IN 1-3 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE THEN I'VE GOT THE FUNDS. THE FUNDS CAN COME FROM SOME INVESTORS, LOANS FROM BANKS OR FROM ADVERTISEMENTS POSTED ON MY BLOG.IF I'VE GOT A LARGE AMOUNT OF FUNDS THEN I'VE NO NEED OF YOUR FUNDS. SO INVEST NOW OR NOT AT ALL.

My BLOG started to be written January 11, 2015. TODAY, MAY 30, 2015, THE NUMBER OF CLICKS HAS REACHED 56,750. SO FAR SO GOOD.

If I get big funds from investors then with a quick story that I wrote will spread throughout the world.So I got acceleration because I can put ads in a large variety of media such as Google AdWords, Facebook, and others. I also can perform a variety of other marketing strategies.

If I do not get funding from investors then my story would still spread throughout the world. But with a longer time, Slow but sure.So either I get funding from investors or not, the story that I wrote will remain spread throughout the world. Ha ... 7xSo don't worry, be happy.

My advice to you is you should think whether the data that I have provided to you makes sense or not .

If my data reasonable then immediately invest your funds as soon as possible.

Then we discuss how we plan further cooperation.

Thank you.

Lord Jesus bless you.

Amen

P.S. The offer letter I gave also to the hedge funds and venture capital and other major companies in the entire world. So who is fast then he will get it.